B E B E R E

Wardrobe Malfunction

Say what you want about Janet Jackson's little incident two Januaries ago - if you're a female, chances are you're going to have something similar happen at least once in your life. Today was my turn.

It was a happy skirt day, and I picked one short enough to warrant stockings. Rummaging through my unmentionables drawer, I pulled out a new pair in a brand I don't normally buy (on sale - buy one get one 1/2 off at CVS last week), but was willing to give a try. They went on okay and felt fine, so I headed out the door.

About halfway to work, I noted that something didn't feel quite right. Had taken the jacket off and tied it around my waist - was that getting loose? Was my skirt riding up? (Have walked all the way to work with my skirts tucked into my underwear, so this is always a fair concern for me.) What was it? I didn't think anything of the new stockings - their elastic couldn't be giving way practically out of the package, could it? Walked a couple more blocks feeling really, really strange. Got to Walnut Street and was descending Prospect hill when all of a sudden the jacket slid off my hips and down my legs, taking both the stockings and other undergarments with them. Mercifully this happened on a residential street with everyone off to work as there were no innocent bystanders around to be subjected to a vision of a bit more than "London or France," as the old children's taunt goes. I crouched down, gave everything a good YANK up, picked up the jacket to put in my bag and headed off to work. Every couple blocks, I made certain to give my waist a tug so as not to have an encore performance on a busy street or in front of construction workers. Once at work, borrowed a few safety pins and tacked the waist of the stockings to the waistband of my skirt.

I cannot wait until summer, when I can go bare-legged and not have to worry about this sort of nonsense.